Finally, Some Good News on Jobs

The Labor Department has finally delivered some good news in the weekly jobless claims reading. While the prior week was revised to 428,000 from 423,000 in weekly jobless claims, the current report showed a drop of 37,000 to 391,000 weekly jobless claims.

Dow Jones was looking for a mere 3,000 lower. This figure is looking significantly better even if some of this is called seasonal and somewhat due to some technical issues for the week over week comparisons.

The 4-week average also fell by 5,250 jobs to 417,000.

Another drop was seen in the army of unemployed measured by the continuing claims: -20,000 to 3.729 million, although there is a one-week delay in that data.

This may not be enough to cut down the unemployment reading, but it is a start. It may still be too soon to have a celebration. Those weekly claims still need to get closer to 300,000 rather than 400,000 for the erosion to abate.